Minorities getting closer to the majority

[AliceInWonderland]

Hispanics are fastest-growing group, increasingly U.S.-born

(CNN) -- The influence of traditional minorities in the United States will continue to grow, new Census Bureau statistics suggest, with Hispanics born as American citizens accounting for more than a third of the population increase last year.

Bureau figures released Wednesday show the U.S. population grew by 2.8 million between July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2005. Hispanics accounted for 1.3 million of that increase, with 800,000 attributable to natural causes -- births minus deaths -- rather than immigration.

Coupled with the high birth rate for Hispanics -- the Population Resource Center cites statistics showing the average Hispanic woman will have three children in her lifetime; it's 1.8 for non-Hispanic whites -- the number means Hispanics will make up an increasing share of the citizenry.

"It mutes the illegal-versus-legal debate," said Linda Jacobson, director of domestic programs for the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. "We need to be more focused on how we meet the needs of children in immigrant families who are citizens."

Census statistics also show that 45 percent of children under age 5 are from a racial or ethnic minority.

About a third of Hispanics were younger than 18, compared with a fourth of the population in general, the bureau said.

The median age for Hispanics -- the point at which half are older and half are younger -- was 27.2 years in 2005. It was 30.0 years for blacks and 40.3 years for white non-Hispanics.

For Census measurements, Hispanics can be of any race. The following numbers include people who reported a race alone or in combination with one or more other races.

The overall U.S. population totaled 296.4 million in 2005; 33 percent of that number, or 98 million, were minorities.

Hispanics remained the largest minority group at 42.7 million. They were the fastest growing group from 2004 to 2005, with a 3.3 percent increase.

Blacks represented the second largest minority group, with 39.7 million people and a 1.3 percent increase from 2004 to 2005.

They were followed by Asians (14.4 million; 3 percent increase); American Indians and Alaska natives (4.5 million; 1 percent increase); and native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders (990,000; 1.5 percent increase).

The number of non-Hispanic whites indicating no other race in 2005 totaled 198.4 million, an increase of 0.3 percent.

Growing clout
Because there is only one death for every 8.2 Hispanic births in the U.S., according to Census estimates, the U.S.-born Hispanic population can only be expected to grow.

With growth will come increased economic and political clout.

"Already, Hispanics are an economic force, and because they are growing in number, that won't change," said Jacobson, who added that corporate America is taking notice.

Libbey Paul, a senior vice president of marketing for ACNielson, the marketing information company, told The Associated Press that supermarkets are looking to stock more of what large, young families need, items like toothpaste, and food companies are producing more products that cater to Hispanic tastes.

"They've become more politically and socially visible," she told AP. "It's never been this vocal."

President Bush and Congress have been debating changes to the nation's immigration laws in recent months, spawning a series of high-profile demonstrations across the country by protesters sympathetic to illegal immigrants.

Mark Sawyer, an assistant professor of political science at UCLA, said the growing Hispanic population nationwide could tip the political balance in some states.

Potentially alienating Hispanic voters, he said, "is of concern to the Republican Party."

Hispanic voters, he said, tend to "believe in a kind of social safety net."

"They're concerned about education and health care and believe the government should play a role in it," Sawyer said. "That potentially means that many red states may turn blue, particularly those that still have a large African-American population."

Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

source: www.cnn.com
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/10/hispanics/index.html

[Grimmlok]

Who cares, the less whitey the better.


.....

[Barbara]

^^ Racist!

[UndercoverGator]

Easy for you to say in your lilly white and gaysian yellow Canada!

[darksithbunny]

Actually I have quite a few black friends worried about this. They told me that all the blacks, whites, asians, and everyone basically except the Hispanics need to group together just to out number them! Shaniqua, you crack me up, girl!

[UndercoverGator]

Actually I have quite a few black friends worried about this. They told me that all the blacks, whites, asians, and everyone basically except the Hispanics need to group together just to out number them! Shaniqua, you crack me up, girl!

I'm hearing that from my black friends here. They don't mind sharing with whites and asians and anyone else that's been here a while, they're just worried about the Hispanic invasion. A couple of them are worried that they'll lose their jobs to some Hispanic willing to work for a lot less.

[darksithbunny]

That's most of their worries. Plus they feel that certain programs in the community will be taken away or that THEY will have to assimulate to the Hispanic culture. A lot are pissed about their kids in school having to learn Spanish in order to graduate.

[Barbara]

It must be weird to go from a country with one language to the same country but with two languages. Oh well... not that anyone will die of learning Spanish.

[UndercoverGator]

It must be weird to go from a country with one language to the same country but with two languages. Oh well... not that anyone will die of learning Spanish.

That may be true but why oh why can't they do like all of my ancestors and everyone else I knows ancestors and learn the primary language of this nation and attempt to settle in like generations of immigrants from around the world have done.

Also in this area people who are here legally, who went through the red tape and did everything official are very upset by the illegal Hispanic population and feel like they shouldn't be allowed to stay while they and others had to go through quite an ordeal to immigrate here.

[Barbara]

That may be true but why oh why can't they do like all of my ancestors and everyone else I knows ancestors and learn the primary language of this nation and attempt to settle in like generations of immigrants from around the world have done.

I know. Here if you go as far as to say that you're already labeled a racist. Social services have to have people fluent in turkisk, arab, serbian or whatever, because the poor immigrants can't be forced to learn the local language
Some people have been here for over ten years and still can't speak french or german properly. It's worse for the women, who are often stay at home reproducers

[UndercoverGator]

Barbara you must have gotten some of those overflow Turks that the Germans hated so badly when we lived in Germany years ago. The Germans were pretty upset by the influx of Turks.

No nation should have to change to accommidate an incoming population.

[Barbara]

No nation should have to change to accommidate an incoming population.

True, otherwise it's called an invasion. But it happens.

[sweetrebel]

Just a few weeks ago, immigration pulled into the town I work in and loaded up 2 bus loads of illegals. I assume they were to be deported. Not that it really matters, there will be 4 bus loads to take their place in a month.
I hear so many people talk about the "illegals taking the jobs" I am in no way a political person, and very seldom even respond to anything political, but IMO, most jobs that the illegals do are the shit jobs that no one will do for the amount of money that illegals make. I hear people speak about the unemployment rate and how the illegals are affecting that....there are just flat out lazy ass people who won't work. It doesn't matter if an illegal never set foot in this town, they want to lay up on there ass and let the government take care of them.
The illegals aren't getting help from the government because they are illegal-duh-you have to have a social security number, birth certificates, etc. to apply for any state aid...it is the "citizens" that piss me off...they depend on the government to feed and clothe them, but want to bitch about an illegal that works from sun up to sun down. I d0on't think the jobs that they are doing just appeared from no where-there is a need for workers, and they are willing to do the job-unlike some of the able bodied men and women that I see every day at the grocery stores with their food stamp cards, going to the doctor for free. There were times that I couldn't even eat and forget about getting sick and having to go to the doctor-I didn't qualify for any benefits. And don't even try to get in Wal Mart between the first and the third-it is so crowded with people who get their checks you can't walk down an aisle and stand in line 30 or 45 minutes.

RANT OVER!!! Guess I got a little worked up

[UndercoverGator]

Here's an interesting article from today's Washington Post which illustrates some of the sentiment in this region - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051002014.html

Dissonant Voices Inside the Border
Some Established Immigrants Want to Restrict Newcomers

By S. Mitra Kalita
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 11, 2006; Page A01

Under Yeh Ling-Ling's proposal for immigration reform, even she wouldn't be allowed into the country.

In 1980, Yeh arrived on U.S. shores on a visa sponsored by her sister. She went to work as a paralegal for an immigration law firm, helping file petitions for fellow foreigners to enter the United States. But then she started to notice the effects of immigration and population growth on the San Francisco Bay area.


Yeh Ling-Ling, executive director of the Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America and herself an immigrant, favors strict U.S. immigration policies.
Yeh Ling-Ling, executive director of the Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America and herself an immigrant, favors strict U.S. immigration policies. (By Thor Swift For The Washington Post)
Thursday, 11 a.m. ET
Immigration Debate
Washington Post staff writer S. Mitra Kalita will be online to discuss immigrants who are calling for tighter U.S. borders. She writes that the issue complicates a debate often framed in racial terms, with immigrants on one side and native-born, white Americans on the other.

"When I found out the cost of infrastructure, the cost of educating kids in America, I was shocked," said Yeh, executive director of the Oakland-based Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America, a nonprofit organization that wants to reduce immigration. "There would be a tremendous drain on America. . . . Isn't it clear that immigration is not needed to boost the U.S. economy?"

Her view complicates a debate often framed in racial terms, with immigrants on one side and native-born, white Americans on the other. Yeh is ethnically Chinese, was born in Vietnam, raised in Cambodia, educated in Taiwan and France, became a U.S. citizen, and considers herself 100 percent American. As the latter, she says she owes it to her fellow Americans to tighten and secure U.S. borders so immigrants -- even ones like her -- can no longer come.

In the camp to severely restrict immigration, there are many like Yeh. Last week, as thousands of mostly Hispanic protesters boycotted work and economic activity, a smaller number staged a news conference in Washington to deride their fellow immigrants under the newly named group "You Don't Speak for Me." And on Internet message boards, Asian computer programmers are speaking out against the temporary visas that made their very passage to the United States possible.

Analysts note that previous waves of immigrants have wanted to limit newer arrivals, often to avoid competition for jobs and housing. More than a century ago, Northern and Western Europeans, such as the Irish and Germans, decried the admission of Southern and Eastern Europeans. With the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, those later groups had tense relations with Asian and Latino newcomers. Now in a more heterogeneous United States, divisions don't necessarily break down by region of origin but by class and legal status, according to Louis DeSipio, a University of California at Irvine professor who has studied Latino movements.

"There is some thinking that the older immigrants went through some very difficult standards, and new, unauthorized immigrants are not doing that," DeSipio said. "The newest immigrants tend to live and work around those who have immigrated in the recent past. They see the effects of immigration on neighborhoods and workplaces more than the average American."

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center last year, 23 percent of the 1,200 Hispanics surveyed thought unauthorized migration was hurting the U.S. economy and driving down wages. The center concluded the 23 percent was "a significant minority, concentrated among native-born Latinos."

A more recent poll of 800 legal immigrants, conducted by Bendixen & Associates of Miami and sponsored by New America Media, found that 23 percent thought undocumented immigrants should be deported. In an interview, pollster Sergio Bendixen still concluded that most immigrants have a positive view of immigration but said that African, Asian and European immigrants seemed less enthusiastic than Latinos.

And a Pew Research Center poll found that immigrants still have a more positive attitude toward migration than the country overall; 52 percent of the U.S. population said immigrants take away jobs, housing and health care, while 41 percent said they strengthen the country.

Beyond the economic impact, though, some immigrants accuse more recent waves of not properly assimilating.

Eight years ago, Claudia Garcia left Mexico to join her husband in California; they had met through a personal ad and married in Mexico. She adopted his last name, Spencer, learned his language, English, and eventually became a U.S. citizen.

"I realized that America had freedom, honesty," she said. "All these people, these illegals, are abusing this. Americans are giving them everything and they are incapable of saying, 'I broke the law.' Instead they are saying, 'I came to your country illegally and I want to wave my Mexican flag.' "

This year, the Spencers attended a city council meeting to oppose a day-laborer site. Copies of Claudia Spencer's speech circulated on the Internet, and an official with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which wants to curb immigration, called her. She joined the local chapter of the Minuteman Project, a volunteer patrol along the U.S.-Mexican border. She started fielding calls and e-mails from fellow Hispanics who felt the way she did. Others called her a traitor.

"People sending me their messages, they are telling me that I am discriminating against my own people," she said. "No. If I love America, I have to assimilate. If you don't love America, you shouldn't be here."

On May 1, a day marked by protests nationwide, Spencer joined other immigrants at the National Press Club to send a message to the boycotters: "You don't speak for me."

Her solution to illegal immigration would criminalize employers who hire people unauthorized to work in the United States. "Once they don't have anyone to hire them, they are going back to their countries themselves," she said.

At the Diversity Alliance, Yeh said that only exceptional immigrants or the spouses of U.S. citizens and their minor children should be allowed to immigrate. She said black Americans are often the first displaced by immigrants. True to its name, the advisers and board of the group are a diverse lot, including immigrants, American Indians and black Americans, namely the former director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Frank Morris.

In a debate often described as emotional, some critics of current immigration levels say they try to keep their ethnicities and countries of origin out of the discussion. George J. Borjas, a Harvard University economist, has been quoted more than 100 times in the past three months alone, usually in articles citing his research showing that immigrants depress wages for competing American workers. Less often mentioned is that Borjas was born in Cuba and came to the United States as a young boy.

"I'm an academic. I'm an economist," he said simply. "The reason I am working on this issue is not because of where I came from."

While the children of immigrants have staged rallies and walked out of class to defend immigrant rights, there are children of immigrants on the other side.

Caroline Espinosa works as the media coordinator for NumbersUSA, an Arlington organization that wants to reduce immigration. While stationed in the Philippines, her American father met and married her Filipina mother. Espinosa, whose husband is Mexican American, says she considers her diverse, multiracial family an example of the melting pot that America is supposed to be.

"My mother was very good about teaching us culture, and we went to the Philippines for visits all the time. She gave us what she considered Filipino values, but you can do that and still assimilate in the United States very easily," Espinosa said. "What you're seeing today is that there's less melting going on."

Staff writer S. Mitra Kalita will discuss this report at 11 a.m. athttp://washingtonpost.com/business.

I'm sorry to say I disagree with a lot of your rant Sweetrebel but then again you've never had your SS # stolen and co opted by an immigrant in an attempt to get welfare.

[Grimmlok]

Yeah, apparently it's pretty easy to swipe an SSN or even have one forged or something... I was surprised myself.